I just bought a bow this passed weekend after not shooting in 13-14 years, I was 15 or so last time I shot. When I draw back I have to rush my shot because if I hold it too long my arm starts to wander all over. By rushing my shot to keep from wandering it obviously causes other issues. I was told that once I shoot for a while and I build up my "archery muscles" this should mostly, or completely, go away. I was wondering how true this is. I was also wondering if there are other ways I could help with it. I am already doing things like trying to focus on the target instead of my pin and making sure I try to keep my breathing nice and steady.
Most importantly...what poundage are you shooting? If you're shooting 70, dial it down back to 60 for starters. Or dial it down to 65lbs and adjust your letoff to 80% if your cams allow for this. Practice does make perfect. I suggest exercising with your bow at full draw daily. Off season, during season, as much as possible. Not sure if this is clear, but you don't need to knock an arrow to do this. Focus on your breathing while doing this and try to hold your bow back for a minute at a time, let down, rest for 3 minutes and do it again. Do that for 20 minutes a day. You should start increasing your time at full draw up to 3 minutes. Time spent in the gym is valuable. Bowhunting does not come without putting in effort. There's a number of basic shoulder and back exercises you can do to increase strength. Once you feel 100% comfortable with holding your bow at full draw for 3 minutes or longer and remain stable, you can start to increase your poundage. I recommend 2lbs at a time. This recipe and regime is not for everyone, but it works for me and it pays off. I had to hold for 4 minutes earlier this season when my NY buck walked behind a tree. I was surrounded by does and couldn't risk the chance of being detected if I let down. Needless to say the hard work I put in all year paid off and the 8 pointer is in my freezer. Hope this helps. Good luck.
^^^^ If your arm muscles aren't able to maintain that hold even with a more appropriate draw weight, an exercise that might help would be to get a plastic, one gallon milk jug and fill it partially with water. Hold it at arms length for several minutes each day and continue to add water till it's full.
The others that posted pegged this...you simply haven't built up the muscles yet. I got a Marine buddy of mine into archery and he struggled mightily for the first month because he hadn't developed the muscles associated with using a bow...and this is a big, strong guy, much stronger than I am. It was a little intimidating to him to see me pulling 68 pounds while he was struggling with my old bow set at 55 pounds. Once he developed the muscles, he easily pulls 70 pounds now.
Also use your body more in your aiming not just your arm. Make sure your stance is balanced not to much weight on your forward leg. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thx a lot guys. I'm glad to hear that once I get used to it and build my muscles it should greatly improve my wandering. I will def start to practice at home. I have only been shooting every other day or so when I have time for like 30-45 min. Good news is I have a whole year to practice.
Don't over practice either...when you are getting tired, stop. Practicing when you get tired leads to bad form and mistakes that creep into your form (a lesson I think we all learned when we first started using a bow). Have fun with it, it definitely is addicting!
all good advice except for one thing mentioned in an earlier post... he said you don't need an arrow to practice holding in your house... I'd say, never pull the bow back without an arrow in place... any slip and you end up releasing without an arrow and you can damage or possibly ruin your bow... you can still practice inside, just nock an arrow and aim at a wall you don't mind putting a hole in if you accidentally release.. or one ya can patch easily (also if an inside wall, ensure no one is on the other side... that arrow will pass thru unless ya hit a stud)
Where you said you don't need an arrow to practice holding the bow at full draw. I did that ONE time, it was after turning my poundage up another 5lbs. I was trying to practice getting more comfortable with the weight, and I guess my D-Loop was worn out... Suddenly my D-Loop snapped, which dryfired the bow which deformed my cams and messed a whole lot up on my bow! This was a Bowtech and the limbs did NOT brake!! It was probably my fault but I still like to go a bit safer even when I am drawing my bow inside the house.
Thx for the advice guys. I knew already that dry firing was a huge no no. I never took into consideration of it accidently releasing specially since I'm not used to how sensitive the release is. Even though I keep my fingers behind the trigger it's definitely not something I wanna risk after the amount of money I put into my set up.
Dont practice too much,once you begin too feel fatigued or tired just stop,take a break,and then start again.Or you could try turning your poundage down until you feel more comfortable. As others have already said,once you get your "bow muscles" built up you will be fine. The reason most people have trouble at the beginning is beacuce when you draw a bow you are using mostly your back/shoulder muscles and other than shooting bow (or other similiar things) you dont use these muscles very often so they are weak. Push ups are pretty good for biulding these back up so if you want too you could start doing some to speed up the process.
Dunno if you checked, but you may have to long a draw set on the bow, that will defintely cause your issue, I dropped mine 1/2 inch and viola! Much steadier, able to hit the backwall more solid, also your back muscles on both sides need to work in tandem, that also is important.
I bought my bow from our local archery specialty shop. They help me get everything set up. They got my poundage where I felt comfortable, they set my draw length, figured out which arrows I should be using. They have been in business for 47 year and do nothing but archery so I'm confident my set up should be OK.
learning good breathing techniques will also help, I usually take a breath or two and let it fly while exhaling on the second one.
I understand, but keep in mind when they do the measurements and that is only a ballpark of where your draw length is generally, you can rather get a private instructor to watch you draw your bow or ask if that bow has any over draw, it's not uncommon for a bow to have a 1/2 overdraw, which means your draw length would be most comfortable 1/2 inch shorter than what your measurement reads. Shops aren't going to tune your bow and perfectly adjust it for you, they'll get ballpark figures and adjustments and set your bow at that. Anything else is on you rather by reading and researching or asking your shop to do additional things ie paper tune etc. The 1/2 draw adjustment on my bow is what helped me tremendously get on target and put solid groups dead center at 20 yards, not sure if that would help you, but just throwing it out there..
Yea, I understand completely what you are saying. The archery shop I went to does help with a lot of that stuff. I spent almost 6 hours at the shop with them working on stuff and shooting at their in door range. With me being an in experienced shooter I am still tweaking a lot of stuff like my stance, anchor points, the length of my release ect. As I move a long in my practice I will def be revisiting things like draw length, weight, arrows once I'm positive its not just me being in experienced.
I never draw a bow unless I plan on shooting it. I've had 2 bows blown up for me by "friends" that picked up my bow and drew it back to see "how it felt". If you want to develop your muscles there are lots of different rubber bow stretching type apparatus that will help do that without taking a chance that you might dry fire.
If you're having bow hand movement and you're a right handed shooter. Try repositioning your foot placement. As in, if you're standing perpendicular to the target more your feet a bit out of perpendicular. There is a spot at which your bow arm will stop moving to the left. Work on that left movement first. But If all else fails, drop the bow weight.
Just an update on how my aim is coming along. It is getting A LOT better the more I practice. I can't wait for next season to put a big boy on the ground.
The biggest help is to be having fun which will lead to regular shooting. So if backing the weight down or playing games with yourself or a friend also keeps you at it.
